Don’t have time to work out during the week? That’s actually OK

“Weekend warriors” and those who work out just a little still see death risk drops.

Your workout schedule may have just gotten a lot more flexible: that is, whether you try to fit in a brisk exercise routine every day before dinner or just go big on the weekends after sitting at your 9-to-5 all week—it may not actually matter to your overall health.

Looking at the health data of about 64,000 adults over 18 years, British researchers found that any exercise—however little or infrequent—was still linked to reduced risks of death from cardiovascular disease and cancer. The findings, which appear this week in JAMA Internal Medicine, beef up the idea that there is no “right” way to dole out exercise in your weekly schedule and that there’s no threshold of activity at which health benefits kick in.

“Some leisure time physical activity is better than none,” the authors, led by exercise and health expert Gary O’Donovan of Loughborough University, concluded. More exercise is better, of course. But for those who hit overall weekly goals for activity, “frequency and duration [of workouts] did not matter,” in terms of achieving those health benefits.

Currently, the World Health Organization recommends that people between 18 and 64 years old get at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise a week, or 75 minutes of vigorous activity a week, or some equivalent combination of those. What counts as moderate and vigorous can vary a bit between people because it’s measured by your metabolic rates. But generally, moderate exercise includes activities such as brisk walking or casual bike riding, while vigorous activity would include running or playing soccer.

While those tallies are firmly established, researchers have been wobbly on how best to reach them—small bursts or big blow outs—and what happens when you don’t quite make it.

To find out, researchers collected data and tracked 64,000 people between 1994 and 2012, fitting them into activity categories. About 45 percent were male, all were over 40 years old, and the average age was 58.6. About 62 percent fit into the inactive category, about 22 percent were insufficiently active—they worked out some but not as much as experts recommend. Only about 11 percent were considered active—they met recommendations—and a remaining four percent or so were considered “weekend warriors,” or people who crammed intense, longer workouts into the weekends.

Next, the researchers tracked deaths among the different activity level groups, particularly deaths from cardiovascular disease and cancers, which are the two leading causes of death. This allowed them to look at the risk of death in each group, taking other factors such as smoking, illnesses, age, and socioeconomic status into account.

Compared with the inactive group, all of those who did some level or pattern of activity were better off. The insufficiently active had a 31 percent reduction in overall mortality risk, weekend warriors had a 30 percent lower risk, and active folks had a 35 percent lower risk.

The same was the case when the researchers focused specifically on cancer and cardiovascular death risks. Compared with that of the sedentary group, risk of cancer death fell by 14 percent in the somewhat active, 18 percent in weekend warriors, and 21 percent in the active. For cardiovascular deaths, risk dropped by 37 percent in the somewhat active, 40 percent in weekend warriors, and 41 percent in the active.

Together, the authors concluded that “less frequent bouts of activity, which might more easily fit into a busy lifestyle, offer considerable health benefits.” A workout or two can get you those benefits, “regardless of adherence to prevailing physical activity guidelines.”